JUPITER, Fla.-- Jupiter police are on Indiantown Road from A1A to Military Trail conducting traffic stops, but not on drivers. The High Visibility Enforcement Detail focuses on pedestrians and bicyclists and police say it's run by a grant from the Florida Department of Transportation to curb pedestrian and cyclist crashes.
In January, Jose Hernandez Cota was on his bicycle crossing the eastbound lanes of Indiantown Road heading south. He was about 240 feet from a designated crosswalk at Central Boulevard when a driver could not stop in time and hit him.
"When I saw the bicycle laying on the road, I saw it was his bicycle, but I couldn't accept it," said Juan Hernandez, Jose's brother.
Hernandez said his brother would go get coffee at the Country Corner Store every morning before work. He rode his bike because he didn't have a car; that morning he never came back home.
Jupiter Sergeant Eric Frank works the HVE detail on Indiantown Road. He constantly sees pedestrians and bicyclists cross the medians on Indiantown Road where there are no traffic signals or crosswalks.
"Basically you're playing chicken with the cars and you're gambling with your life," said Sergeant Frank. "In the short stretch there are several crosswalks in that area, but some people just want to go straight."
Sergeant Frank stops them and educates those who won't go the extra quarter mile to cross at a designated crosswalk and drivers who don't brake to yield to those walking and on a bike at the crosswalk.
"The people turning here [right turn at a red light] they don't have the right of way, she [bicyclist at the crosswalk] has the right of way," said Sergeant Frank as he explained how some drivers don't stop to allow people to legally cross.
Sergeant Frank remembers the deadly crash in January, one that also traumatized the driver.
"You step out from behind those trees, that driver has a split second to react," he said.
Hernandez says Jupiter's HVE detail is needed to make sure what happened to his brother doesn't happen to anyone else. He said his brother has two teenage boys in Guatemala he was working to provide for.
"I feel alone, I feel sad because he's my brother," said Hernandez.
Jupiter Police say pedestrian crashes are down by 50 percent from January to September of 2017 to this January to September. Bicycle crashes are still up. In 2017 they had 25 and in 2018 they are already up to 25.
In March police will move to the enforcement part of the detail and begin issuing citations. The detail will run twice a month until May.